By Buster McNutt
It did not turn out to be a great trade-off after all. Several months ago our neighbors with the 13 cats moved away, taking all the cats with them. We rejoiced. Thirteen of almost any “pet” is too many, with the possible exception of goldfish, which the neighbors also used to have, before their cats ate them. They also had three parakeets. That didn’t end well either. Our only concern with the cats leaving was that it might bring the mice back. Norman, our neighbor and long-time Florida resident, said not to worry about mice, because with the cats gone, the snakes would be back and they would eat the mice. Well that’s comforting to know.
As soon as the cats were gone the squirrels started showing up in large numbers. Now, I have nothing against squirrels any more than I do against any other species of rats with furry tails. I guess as a child I was brainwashed by the “Rocky and Bullwinkle” cartoons. To this day I still can’t open a container of Moose Tracks Ice Cream and not dig around with a spoon to see if maybe there is a small one in there (we only had a 10-inch, black-and-white TV, so I’m not sure I got the scale just right).
We’d been doing some traveling and spending time installing the solar food dehydrator on the Clunker Pontoon Boat (it’s a Florida thing), so I hadn’t started the S10 pickup in over a month. Sure enough, when I tried, it wouldn’t turn over. So I got the battery cables out and raised the hood. Most of the insulation on the ignition cables had been chewed off! Neighbor Norman took one look and said, “Yep, it was the squirrels.” Really? With acres of nut-bearing tress all around, they preferred my ignition wire insulation? Norman said they use it kind of like floss, to get the nut fragments out from between their teeth. He apparently saw this on a “Wild Kingdom” rerun on TV, although why Marlin Perkins would have been in North Central Florida studying the dental hygiene of rodents is beyond me. Maybe it is time to admit that there are just too many cable channels. “Alaskan Frontier Thumb Wrestling,” anyone?
So, how do I stop this from happening again? I decided to invest a couple hours on Saturday morning at the Burger Bob Barn, where about a dozen or so of the “city elders” come to eat breakfast, swap fishing lures, tell their favorite pump-priming stories, and just generally get away from their spouses’ weekend Honey-Do lists for a little while. I explained my situation. They all chuckled and said that pretty much happens to all the people who move here from “the North.” But they were helpful, maybe too much so, like the time my pencil sharpener broke, and my neighbor told me to hold the pencil real still while he fired up the chain saw.
The first solution was to — wait for it — get a couple of cats! Several of them had cats, although one had a ferret, and he said that worked just as well, although finding the economy-size bags of ferret litter was getting to be more difficult. This wouldn’t work, because Lady M. would never own a cat. She was the only girl in a family of eight kids, and “the boys” were of a culture where tying two cats tails together and tossing them over a clothes line was considered the height of “what the cool kids do.” Only they didn’t have a clothes line, so they tossed it over the telephone line. Only it wasn’t a telephone line. When the two cats started clawing at each other, they, in technical terms, “completed a circuit.” And yes, just like in the cartoons, when they lit up you could see their skeletons flashing on and off.
The next solution was what they referred to as the “Two Peanut Strategy.” In the first part you coat your plug wire insulation with spray adhesive, and then spread on a generous portion of Skippy Crunchy Peanut Butter. When the squirrels try to bite it, the little peanut bits get stuck in their teeth, which is exactly what they are trying to avoid, so they move away. They emphasized not to use Peter Pan, because for some reason it attracts fire flies as well as alligators, and you’ll have the irresistible urge to snap your fingers and go score some pixie dust. The second part of this plan is to call your neighbor over to see what you’ve done, and while he is there, have your wife go over and throw a handful of peanuts under his car.
But they all agreed that best solution is simply to go to the hunting supply store and get a large spray bottle of DeerStink. This is nasty stuff. Yes, it attracts mating deer, but it repels just about everything else. You may remember a few years ago the New England Patriots got into big trouble for spraying it on their opponents goal line (a.k.a., “Stinkgate”). So I tried it, and sure enough the squirrels were history. When I drove down the road I didn’t have to worry about pedestrians, people on bikes, dogs, turkeys crossing the road — they wouldn’t get near me. But I’m pretty sure you can figure out what happened next. Getting chased down the road by a herd of sexually “motivated” deer is no laughing matter. Those big old horn dogs can run! I have more antler scratches on my tailgate than Hillary Clinton has tattoos. What, you think she dresses in those full coverage frumpy outfits because she thinks they are stylish?
I went back to the Burger Bob Barn and told the group about my experience, and they all bust out laughing, tears coming down their cheeks. They said they really didn’t think anybody would actually be gullible enough to do that. But I took it all in good humor. I sat down and took it like a man, while Lady M. went out to the parking lot and “marked up” all their tires.
Oh grow up. With DeerStink. What are we, third graders here? •
